I’m glad for the american citizens that they can be extradited to the foreign country:). But nevertheless Russia doesn’t surrender her citizens to the no foreign country. It is the constitutional forbiddance.
If the foreign country beleives that russian citizen commited some crime then the foreign country may present her evidences into the Russian court and look for the prosecution.
But Brits refused to go this way. Maybe they know that thier evidences are not that convincing?
You and I know that the Russian judicial system is a joke, the only law that is working is the Law of Gravity.
For the English prosecutors: Most matters are a matter of law in England, not policy. So what is happening is because the law bids it.
For handing over evidence to Russia: I think that should this be allowed by English law, then they now have enough understanding of the situation to know that this is not going to work.
What happens at the moment is that the FSB lean on the courts and judges. It is not quite like the Soviet times where everything is directed from the center.
Litvinenko was arrested three times in Russia on made-up charges about actions he took as an FSB operative.
Each time he was acquitted, by a miracle, there was an FSB squad outside the court to arrest him. Finally they trumped up a charge which would have to be tried in some provincial court where the judge would be more in fear of the old KGB/FSB and just do what they wanted.
Just look at the number of mysterious deaths from “bomb outside apartment” , “mystery hit-man”.
Putin would not be in this mess if he had known where it would end. It is one of those situations which started small and with each attempt to make small back into nothing, got bigger and bigger. The Polonium had been successfully used as a poison several times before in “died from food poisoning, while in custody” like the old “died from heart attack, while in custody”, but this time Lugovoi botched the dose. If he had not, we would never know anything about this.
Putin, would not have started this if he knew where it was going to end. Just like Nixon was not a crook, but he made a bad decision early on and then gambled on covering it up.
Now it will never go away. Putin’s problems will start when he is no longer president.